Business news in brief

Philadelphia chemical company Rohm & Haas Co. said yesterday that it would repurchase $2 billion in company stock. The new share repurchase will unfold in two stages. The first $1 billion will be financed with debt and be done in the third quarter. The second $1 billion will be financed with cash and run through 2010.

- Bob Fernandez

Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, will join the board of his casino company, Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. "She's been outstanding in everything she has done, and she will be an outstanding board member," Trump said during the weekend. Ivanka Trump, 25, previously has appeared as her father's sidekick on his reality TV show,

The Apprentice

. NBC said yesterday that it was picking up the show for a seventh season with an all-celebrity cast. Ivanka Trump also is vice president of the New York-based Trump Organization, which controls Trump hotels, real estate holdings and golf courses. Before joining the casino company's nine-member board, she must obtain a gambling license from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. The agency said it expected to grant her preliminary approval as soon as tomorrow.

- Suzette Parmley

Beijing Med-Pharm Corp., Plymouth Meeting, said yesterday that it would buy a minority stake in China's Sunstone Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. for $32 million. Sunstone is a privately held manufacturer of primarily over-the-counter medicines with operations in Tangshan, Hebei province. Beijing Med-Pharm will acquire 49 percent of the issued share capital of Hong Kong Fly International Health Care Ltd., a Hong Kong corporation that holds a 100 percent equity interest in Sunstone. Because Sunstone is private and the transaction will take place in Hong Kong, Chinese government approval is not required. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2007. Beijing Med-Pharm is a marketing and distribution company that helps U.S. and Western drug companies sell their medicines in China. Beijing Med-Pharm shares closed down 31 cents at $10.27.

- Linda Loyd

International Business Machines Corp. said it had won a $1.4 billion outsourcing contract from AstraZeneca P.L.C., a seven-year deal aimed at helping the British pharmaceutical company manage its internal technology operations. AstraZeneca has U.S. headquarters in Wilmington. IBM, Armonk, N.Y., will run servers, data storage, desktop computers and networking services for AstraZeneca around the world. The contract is an extension of a relationship the two companies have had for more than seven years. The deal was reached this month and will not affect IBM's second-quarter earnings, scheduled to be reported tomorrow.

- AP

Newly minted shares in Beneficial Mutual Bancorp Inc. traded yesterday morning for as little as $9.15, an 8.5 percent discount to the Philadelphia bank's $10-per-share initial public offering price Friday. They closed at $9.21, down 79 cents. In conjunction with Friday's sale of 23.61 million shares to eligible depositors of Beneficial Mutual Savings Bank, Beneficial acquired FMS Financial Corp., Burlington, for $182.5 million, including 11.92 million Beneficial shares and $64.2 million in cash. The Beneficial shares are trading under the ticker symbol BNCL. Beneficial said it expected the merger to solidify its position as the largest bank headquartered in Philadelphia, with $3.8 billion in assets, $2.5 billion in deposits and more than 70 branches.

- Harold Brubaker

InGrid Inc., Berwyn, said it had raised $13.5 million in private equity to expand home-protection products and services with its new class of all-digital, all-wireless technology. Armstrong Group and Associated Partners led the financing, the company said. Investors CenterPoint Ventures, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, PA Early Stage Partners and ZG Ventures also participated. InGrid is developing broadband-integrated digital home-protection services for the residential and small-business security market, principally through major broadband service providers.

- Linda Loyd

SunGard Data Systems Inc. said it would acquire VeriCenter Inc., a Houston managed-services, application-hosting, and IT infrastructure-outsourcing company. VeriCenter will become part of SunGard Availability Services. Financial terms were not disclosed. Privately held SunGard, Wayne, said the transaction would not have a "material impact" on the company's financial results.

- Linda Loyd

Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, said the housing market was still weakening and late payments continued to increase, sending the company's shares into their biggest one-day swoon since March. Shares fell $1.42, or 3.9 percent, to $34.84 in New York Stock Exchange trading. They have dropped almost 18 percent this year. Countrywide's mortgage loans totaled $45 billion in June, a 4 percent gain compared with a year earlier, the Calabasas, Calif.-based lender said in its monthly report. Mortgage applications totaled $3.1 billion, an increase of 15 percent.

- Bloomberg News

Lear Corp. shareholders turned down Carl Icahn's $2.9 billion buyout offer, handing a victory to a group of investors who led a five-month battle against the sale of the automotive-seat-maker. The company announced the result at its shareholder meeting in Wilmington. Lear, Southfield, Mich., did not give details of the vote tally. The rejection ended a struggle between Lear management, which supported the sale to the billionaire investor's American Real Estate Partners L.P., and dissident shareholders including Pzena Investment Management L.L.C. Pzena and other sale opponents said Icahn's $37.25-a-share proposal was too low.

- Bloomberg News

Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in yesterday's auction. The Treasury Department auctioned $16 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 4.840 percent, up from 4.815 percent last week. An additional $15 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 4.865 percent, up from 4.850 percent last week. The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,877.66 while a six-month bill sold for $9,754.05.

- AP

The Federal Reserve said yesterday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable-rate mortgages, edged up to 5.00 percent last week from 4.99 percent the previous week.

- AP